


The Secret Admirer

by LittlebutFiery



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Flowers, Fluff, Royai Week, Royai Week 2018, Secret Admirer, friendly shenanigans, some language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-24 03:45:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14946968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittlebutFiery/pseuds/LittlebutFiery
Summary: Cadet Riza Hawkeye begins receiving unexpected gifts from a secret admirer. Years later, she finds out his identity.





	The Secret Admirer

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the Day 6 picture prompt!

It all began on Valentine’s Day.

Riza was not the biggest fan of the holiday. Her roommate Rebecca had teased her relentlessly when this fact was revealed, joked that it was because Riza’s only devotion was to her rifle.

She had no particular reason to dislike the holiday, in truth. It was sweet to see her friends and classmates giving and receiving little gifts and love tokens, bragging about their sweethearts, just generally being happier. She herself would never receive anything like that, but it didn’t bother her.

Well, maybe a little.

Riza had never had a sweetheart – the closest she ever came was when Roy studied under her father. And he was off in the military somewhere, likely shipping off to Ishval if he wasn’t there already.

She walked into the mess hall later than usual, though many tables were still empty. Rebecca was in their usual spot, chatting and laughing with Cassie and Sophia as they ate. She waved at Riza when she saw her, motioning her over to the table to join them.

Everyone’s conversations were focused squarely on the holiday and its various festivities. Cadet Havoc, who’d shamelessly flirted with Riza for the first week of training, until he realized she wasn’t interested, was loudly discussing his latest conquest with his friends. As Riza approached her friends, she wasn’t surprised to find their conversation along similar, though somewhat less crude, lines.

“I hope Charlie takes me out to dinner tonight,” Sophia was saying as Riza sat down. She giggled. “We’ll have to go to that bar downtown. He’s so much fun once he’s got some liquid courage in him.”

Riza rolled her eyes, earning a playful rebuke from Rebecca. “Yeah, yeah, Ri, we know, you’re above all this nonsense.”

Before Riza could retort, a quiet voice said, “Cadet Hawkeye?”

“Yes?” she turned to face the speaker.

It was one of the mail clerks, who often delivered mail to the cadets during breakfast – not that Riza ever received any. The young man was holding a massive vase stuffed full of flowers. He held the vase out, saying, “This is for you.”

Cassie, Rebecca, and Sophia all burst out into peals of laughter as Riza frowned, curious. “You must be mistaken. These can’t be for me.”

The mail clerk, now also confused, checked the tag on the vase again. “No…it says ‘Cadet Riza Hawkeye.’”

Riza accepted the vase, looking at the delivery instructions. Indeed, it was her name. She managed weakly, “Um…thank you.”

Rebecca stopped laughing long enough to ask, “Who are they from?”

“I have no idea. Father wouldn’t do this, and I don’t know anyone else who would either,” Riza replied. She noticed a small card tucked amongst the flower stems, folded neatly and sealed with a red wax seal.

Riza popped open the seal, pulling a small piece of stationery out of the envelope. She read the short note, confusion only growing. Cassie tried to snatch it from her hands; when she failed she demanded, “What does it say? Who’s it from?”

“I…don’t know,” Riza admitted. She read the note aloud. “ _No one deserves to feel left out on Valentine’s Day. Enjoy the flowers, and have a lovely holiday._ ”

“That’s _it?_ ” Rebecca sounded positively offended. “What the fuck kind of half-assed card is that?”

“Riza, looks like you’ve got a secret admirer!” Sophia said in a conspiratorial whisper. “Who do you think it is?”

Riza ran through the list of men she knew. It certainly wasn’t her father. It _definitely_ wasn’t Havoc. The rest of her male classmates either showed no interest in her, or were far too crass to send a note that tasteful.

She had no idea who on Earth this “secret admirer” might be.

 

Weeks went by with no other gifts or cards from her “admirer,” so Riza had chalked it up to either a failed prank or a thoughtful friend. Her friends had practically forgotten about it.

It was the end of March, the week before their midterm exams, when that changed. Riza had barely sat down with her breakfast, waiting for her friends to wake up, when the same mail clerk called, “Cadet Hawkeye.”

She turned, her fork halfway to her mouth, and saw the clerk, once again burdened with a massive vase. Her fork fell from her hand as she weakly managed, “Again?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the clerk nodded. “No return address or name.”

Riza accepted the vase, setting it on the table beside her. Again, there was a small card in a wax-sealed envelope. This time it simply read “ _Good luck on your exams. I’m sure you have no need to be worried._ ”

She was still examining the card, looking for a signature, when the familiar smell of cigarettes wafted her way. Without turning around, she sighed, “Yes, Havoc?”

“Those are some mighty pretty flowers there, Hawkeye,” Havoc said as he sat down beside her, snagging a piece of her toast.

“Yes, they are,” Riza replied, taking the toast back before Havoc could eat it.

“Who’re they from?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Riza admitted.

“A secret admirer, huh?” Havoc’s eyes lit up with playful glee. He called across the cafeteria to his best friend, “Yo, Heymans! Look, Hawkeye has a secret admirer!”

Riza slapped him, growling, “At this rate half of _Amestris_ is going to know. Keep your voice down!”

“Are you _embarrassed_?” Havoc’s grin was wicked.

Riza blushed, suddenly unable to find words. Havoc relented and took another look at the bouquet. “Well, whoever he is, he’s _loaded_.”

“What?” Riza asked.

“These flowers. Whoever’s sending them to you is swimming in money,” Havoc replied. When Riza still looked confused, he clarified, “That’s a Xingese vase. Those are expensive. And the flowers, too. Roses, dahlias, irises, lilies, peonies, tulips…some of those ain’t cheap.”

She couldn’t help but laugh. “You know about flowers?”

Havoc looked hurt. “We sell lots of flowers at my parents’ general store. You got a problem with that?”

“Just surprised, is all. I didn’t think you had a romantic bone in your body,” Riza chuckled. “Had you started with this instead of the lousy pick up lines, I might have given you a chance.”

“They weren’t _that_ bad,” Havoc whined.

“Jean. The very first thing you said to me other than your name was ‘that uniform looks great on you, but it would look better on my bedroom floor,’” Riza scowled.

He laughed, entertained by the memory of his own shitty joke, and started to get up to get his own breakfast. “Well, like I said. Whoever this guy is, he’s rich as hell. You oughta figure out who he is – you’d never have to work again!”

“I like working, thank you,” Riza rolled her eyes.

Havoc shrugged. “You do you, Hawkeye. But maybe do a little snooping, yeah? He seems like a pretty decent guy, if he’s trying to be all cutesy like this. Who knows, maybe you’ll like him.”

He took the piece of toast once again and ambled off back towards his usual table.

Riza sighed.

 

Every month, like clockwork, flowers would show up. The vase was always the same, the flowers always of the same varieties. No name was ever listed except her own, and none of the cards were ever signed.

The cards were always short, sweet, and to the point, always written in the same sharp, angular handwriting and sealed with the same red wax. The handwriting looked vaguely familiar, but Riza couldn’t remember whose it was – not for lack of trying.

Her friends loved to speculate on the admirer, throwing out all kinds of ridiculous theories about who he might be. Havoc and his friend Breda would periodically come join them, usually whenever the flowers were delivered, and join in the speculation.

The little group had bets on who it might be, some of them placing embarrassingly large amounts of money on Riza’s romantic life. Riza ignored it as best she could, though it irked her.

Secretly, she loved the flowers. They were beautiful and fragrant, bringing a shock of color to her otherwise drab dorm room. In exchange for help studying for a military history exam, Havoc had told her what each of the flowers meant. Most were some variation on “love,” which both confused and flattered her. It had been months at this point, and she was no closer to figuring out who they might be from.

The other cadets were starting to take notice, too. Most were curious, occasionally whispering about it in the hallways, but were polite enough not to say anything.

Not all, though. Messerschmidt, a hulking brute Riza had soundly rebuffed, was clearly jealous. Riza ignored his jeers, though her friends found this harder to do. Rebecca slipped salt into his coffee more than once in response to his calling Riza a bitch.

Things came to a head in October, when she got a particularly lovely bouquet for her birthday. As the end of their time at the academy began to wrap up, some of the others resented Riza’s status at the top of their class, Messerschmidt more so than others.

As Riza and her friends admired the birthday bouquet at breakfast, Messerschmidt had (very loudly) accused Riza of sleeping her way to the top of the class, citing the anonymous flowers as proof.

Though Riza didn’t give a damn what he thought, her friends did not seem to agree. Havoc had stormed up to the other man, chest puffed out in anger – a comical sight, as he weighed no more than half of what Messerschmidt did – and socked him square in the nose.

The resulting brawl resulted in Havoc out cold on the mess hall floor, Breda with a broken hand, and Messerschmidt with a black eye. As Riza and Rebecca carried their unconscious friend to the infirmary, Rebecca sighed, “I’m starting to not like your admirer, Ri. He’s causing more issues for you than good.”

Riza shrugged. “I know he means well. I really don’t care what everyone’s saying. I just wish you all would let it go, too.”

“We’re your friends. We’re not just going to let assholes like him say whatever they want about you,” Rebecca shook her head. She laughed. “You better figure out who this guy is. He owes you a nice dinner for all this trouble.”

Riza chuckled as well. “Maybe someday.”

 

After graduation, Riza’s admirer stopped sending flowers. Part of her was disappointed, although she had to admit that flowers probably wouldn’t fare well in Ishval. Besides, she was reunited with Roy – she didn’t need a secret admirer when she got to spend her career beside her childhood love.

Several years later, she had all but forgotten about her academy admirer.

That was, until the first Valentine’s Day she spent at Central Command.

She had been running late, thanks to Black Hayate ripping open his bag of food and spilling it everywhere, just before she was about to walk out the door. Already she was dreading arriving at the office – Fuery didn’t know how to use the coffee maker and would have burnt an already-grumpy Roy’s coffee, Havoc would be waxing poetical about his current girlfriend, and Breda would tease her relentlessly for being late.

At least Falman would probably be polite enough to wish her a happy Valentine’s Day. Last year he’d even been kind enough to buy her a small box of chocolate.

Riza walked into the office as casually as she could, trying to act with the calm assurance Roy did when he showed up late, as though she’d _planned_ on showing up late with no breakfast, no coffee, and covered in dog hair.

As she predicted, Breda teased, “Hey, look who decided to show up!”

She wasn’t paying attention to him, though.

She was staring at her desk, where a large bouquet of flowers sat in a distinctively Xingese vase.

“Just like old times, huh?” Havoc asked, seeing the shock on Riza’s face.

“Who sent these?” Riza demanded.

They all shrugged. Roy said, “It was here when I arrived. The mail clerks must have delivered it.”

Riza all but ran to her desk and found, as she expected, a small card tucked amongst the flowers, sealed with red wax.

She ripped the envelope open and found a simple note inside.

“ _Happy Valentine’s Day, Lieutenant. May it be as lovely as you._ ”

Riza squinted at the note.

She knew that handwriting. At the academy, she thought she’d recognized it, but now, she _knew_.

“Sir?” Riza asked.

“Yes?” Roy replied, looking up from his paperwork.

“Can I have that memo about our investigation into Lieutenant Faraday?” Riza held out her hand for the paper, still engrossed in the little card.

Looking slightly confused, Roy obediently handed her the paper.

Riza held it up next to the card. It had to be the same author – the way the word “Lieutenant” was written on both papers was identical, and the unique flair to the letter Y was the same.

“You were my secret admirer at the academy!” Riza all but accused, thrusting the two papers into Roy’s face.

“What?” Roy protested, startled. “Lieutenant, what are you talking about?”

“Every month at the academy someone sent me flowers and an anonymous note. It was you!” Riza exclaimed.

“I was in _Ishval_ , how could I have possibly sent you flowers?” Roy scowled. “More importantly, _why_ would I have done that?”

“I mean, it makes sense,” Breda added, earning a fearsome stink-eye from his commander. “What? The little cards all had red wax, and you’re the Flame Alchemist. Red makes sense. Besides, you’re the only person I know who even uses wax seals anymore.”

“Plus, that shit’s expensive, and everybody knows State Alchemists are loaded,” Havoc agreed. “Shit, the vases alone were probably more than a year’s rent for me.”

Roy was attempting to maintain his dangerous scowl, but it was somewhat negated by the rapidly rising color in his cheeks. He managed to practically squeak, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Riza rolled her eyes. “You’re a worse liar than Rebecca.”

“You can drop the act, boss, you’re busted,” Breda chuckled.

Roy sighed, rubbing his face. “Fine.”

Havoc whooped in delight, running from the room as he crowed, “I’ve gotta go call Rebecca! She’s gonna lose her shit!”

Riza smiled as Breda practically fell over himself to follow Havoc to the phone. Falman and Fuery looked to Riza for a moment, unsure of what to do, so she nodded and they followed their comrades out, eager to take part in the drama. Roy sighed again. “I knew it wasn’t a good idea.”

“Why did you send them, then?” Riza asked.

“You’d just lost your only family and I was half a world away. I wanted you to know that people were thinking of you,” Roy replied simply.

“You could have signed the notes,” Riza said, amused.

“That wouldn’t have been as fun, now would it?” Roy asked, smirking.

Riza rolled her eyes. She was quiet for a moment before saying, “Thank you, sir.”

“Hm?” Roy sounded confused.

“For the flowers. For thinking of me,” Riza replied.

Roy chuckled. “It was hard for me not to think of you.”

“Don’t let the boys hear you talk like that,” Riza also laughed. “They might think you’re going soft.”

“Hm. We can’t have that,” Roy replied with a smile.

“I suppose I’ll just have to send the flowers to your house from now on.”


End file.
